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As of Open-Beta, players may level up to a cap of 17. Each level the amount of experience points (xp) needed for the next increases, from ~100 at 1-2 to ~46,170 at 11-12. In order to reach the current cap, players will need 1,061,399 xp in total. EDIT: The level cap is now 20.

Xp is granted from killing monsters and bosses, and completing quests. Players will receive xp and quest drops from monsters as long as they dealt damage to the monster, even if they don't land the killing blow or contribute much to its demise.

There are a number of methods that will help a player level faster; these techniques will vary in their efficacy based on the player's level, items, and other factors.

Kill monsters with a group of other players. As long as a player lands a hit on the monster, they are awarded xp. Having several players all attacking the same monster will help bring it down faster, thus granting xp faster. This method is most effective with more players and more monsters.

Follow the questline, completing each area before moving onto the next. Open-Beta is designed to help balance xp and gold rewards, and is currently designed such that if a player completes almost all of the quests, they will end up at level 15. This method of leveling can be less boring than grinding a single quest or group of monsters, and also helps the player to receive good item and weapon drops, which makes killing monsters easier.

Complete repeatable quests over and over. This method is reliable because the xp scaling is linear with a small multiplier, so the quests feasible from level 1 do not lose their efficiency very much.
Dovetail quests. All of the quests available in Battleon can be accepted before the player reaches the area in which they are completed, and the player can complete them while also progressing along the normal quests for the same area. Many of the quests for an area will also have a player complete the requirements for those Battleon quests many times over, so the player can turn in the quest as soon as it is complete, then pick it up again and head back to the area (faster with the use of slash commands) repeatedly until the normal quests for that area are complete.

As of open-beta, no players have reportedly hit a gold cap, though it's possible that there may be one at 2,147,483,647 gold. Gold is used to purchase items from shops.

Gold (gp) can be obtained by killing monsters, completing quests, and selling items. Etc. items can only be sold for gold and as of pre-beta have no other use. Note that most quest reward items are granted only once, so once they have been sold, they are gone and cannot be re-obtained.

There are a number of methods that will help a player level faster; these techniques will vary in their efficacy based on the player's level, items, and other factors.

Kill monsters quickly with a group of other players. This advice is the same as given above for xp. Monsters and bosses only drop 4-6gp each, depending on their level, so this method can be fairly inefficient. Try to find monsters that you can reliably kill in one or two hits in order to maximize your efficiency.

Kill monsters for their drops and sell the drops. Follow the advice for killing monsters above.

The Slime Lord drops piles of five Dried Crust at a low rate (10%). Each stack of 99 crusts sells for ~5000 gp; a slime lord takes roughly 20 seconds to kill with the aid of five or so other players, and respawns every 35 seconds. This method nets about 30 gold/min. By killing Boogerlings while waiting for respawn, this can be raised to about 55 gold/min if you can kill five of them.

Sneevils in Greenguard drop Shipping Labels at a lower rate than King Sneed, but there are seven on the map (four by the evergreen, and three by the deciduous tree). If a player can kill all seven in one minute, this will net about 105 gold/min.

If you have a partner or are very efficient at killing Sneevils, then you can add King Sneed to your rotation to increase your rate to about 145 gold/min.

Doomwood Forest is a surprisingly decent option; Shadow Wolf Alpha drops the Dark Leather Boots at a 15% rate, which sells for 180 gold. Both the Shadow Wolves and Alpha drop both Bone Chip and Patch of Fur. Each Alpha kills nets roughly 32 gold, and each wolf is worth 10 gold on average. There are 8 wolves in near proximity to the alpha, so depending on how many you can kill per minute (uncluding the alpha), how much you'll make varies.

Quests provide much more gp than individual monsters do. This advice is the same as given above for xp.

Butt Heads is a good quest for solo gold-farming. Completion is 40 gold and you get 3 torn cloths which sells at 50 gold each. So that's at least 190 gold for each quest completion. Be sure to use the fast travel options to get to and from Battleon and Livingstone Caverns quickly in order to keep your rate high.

As of pre-beta, damage is determined solely by the Attack stat of players, regardless of whether you're playing a melee, ranged, or magical class.

During pre-beta, there are still many changes being made to the classes and the combat mechanics, so determining any of these things with conclusivity is not possible, though suggestions and general tips should still be useful.

This method is best for fighting monsters that have a high chance of killing the player, or in situations where killing many monsters one-after-the-other isn't ideal (such as farming a boss with a lengthy respawn time).

Classes with a damage-increasing buff (such as Warrior and Rogue) are ideal for this method.

Warrior: first cast War Cry, then use Whirlwind, Vorpal Strike, and Rending Cut in that order. Autoattack while those are on cooldown (cd), and use the abilities as soon as they come off cd.

Rogue: first activate Stealth, then stack four instances of Poison Strike. Next use Spin Kick, and finish with Scorpion Tail Strike.

This method is best for fighting monsters that have a low chance of killing the player, or in situations where you are killing them one-after-the-other (such as killing bosses, farming monsters for drops, or completing boar-killing or bear rump-gathering quests).

Classes that do not rely on large amounts of mana to deal high damage (such as Mage and Rogue) are ideal for this method.

Mage: channel Fireball, then use autoattacks for five seconds (until the fireball debuff timer is at the 8-o'-clock position), then channel another fireball. Repeat.

Rogue: use Poison Strike, autoattack until the poison is about to expire, then apply another poison. Repeat.

This method is best for fighting monsters that have a high chance of killing the player but won't attack until the player first attacks them, or in situations where killing a monster in one hit is most efficient (such as farming for drops or for kills)

Classes that have high damage variability or high max damage (such as Mage or Rogue) are ideal for this method.

Rogue: first activate Stealth, then stack four instances of Poison Strike. Next use Spin Kick, and finish with Scorpion Tail Strike.

This method is best for fighting monsters that have a low chance of killing the player, or in situations where there are many players attacking monsters (such as completing a quest or farming for drops or kills).

Classes that have an area of effect (AoE) ability (such as Warrior or Mage) are ideal for this method.

Mage: first use Magic Shockwave to hit all nearby foes, then use Lightning Strike to hit a monster that wasn't hit by the shockwave. After that use autoattacks to hit additional monsters.

Warrior: first use Whirlwind to hit all nearby foes, then use Vorpal Strike and Rending Cut on monsters that weren't hit. Your last resort is autoattack.

As of pre-beta, bosses can be solo'ed by a mage, but tweets by AE staff have hinted that this might change. Bosses, like regular monsters, have a defined area in which they will attack players and chase them. If the player runs too far away from the boss's spawn point, it will cease to try to attack the player, but will also heal back up to full hp instantly. This area is referred to as its "aggro-area" below.

Typically, equipping gear that grants the most attack rather than defense is ideal for fighting bosses, unless you're planning on tanking, in which case you need both high attack and high defense. Without high attack, you won't be able to maintain the boss's aggro on you.

Mana usage also varies depending on whether you're tanking or not. If you are not tanking, attempt to keep your mana supply equal to the boss's health. If tanking, keep it as high as possible while still maintaining aggro.

Use a ranged class (like mage) and circle-strafe the enemy while spamming the auto-attack button. If you can take a few hits, you can add in a Lightning Bolt+Fireball combo every so often; it's even possible to never take damage while using this combo, provided that you can run far enough from the boss without leaving its aggro-area.

With enough adequately-geared players, it's possible to stand in place and attack the boss, killing it before it kills any of the players. Knowing whether this is possible requires an evaluation of the boss, the gear of the players, and how many players there are, and is not easily summarized.

In a group without enough adequately-geared players: decide on the best killing monsters strategy as outlined above; depending on whether you are the one tanking the hits or not, your likely choices change.

If tanking: try to be the first one to attack the boss, and use either the "alpha strike" or "short summer" method for your first few attacks. After this, follow the solo method of circle-strafing. If you lose aggro, employ another alpha strike or short summer.

If not tanking: depending on the health of the boss and how many players there are, use either the "long winter" (for bosses with lots of health and/or few players) or "short summer" method (for a boss with low health, and/or lots of players).

Mana pool and skill use has a large impact on damage output, but equipping the right items for your preferred damage strategy can still be optimized. Here's some rough suggestions; you can also look at our item comparison tables to find what you think is best.

To restore all of your health in a hurry between combats, equip a different class then swap back to the one you wanted to use. Changing classes restores full HP and MP.

If you're either not worried about your HP+MP after a battle or are switching classes after each fight, it is ideal to use mana such that your remaining mana is equal to the monster's remaining health.

Monsters respawn every 35 seconds. To optimize your farming, you can calculate your average kill time and try to fit it into 35-second windows.

For example, if you can kill a Pebblar every seven seconds on average, you'll need to find an area with at least 6 pebblars in order to always have one respawned to kill next.

The inventory is generally limited to 20 items; if something drops that you want to keep and you're at the limit, that means you'll have to discard something to make space. To make sure that you don't have to think too hard about it and possibly miss picking up the drop before it despawns, keep one extra useless item in your inventory (eg a bone chip or other etc. item) that you can throw out to make space with no remorse. Once you need to throw out that item, take the hint that it is time to clean up your inventory and grab another sacrifical item.

To optimize your damage, find out what your ideal skill rotation is, then calculate how much mana it costs to use for one whole cycle. Equip gear that will increase your mana pool in increments of that number. If you're deciding between an item that grants more attack and one that grants more mana, go for the one that grants more attack if the other one doesn't grant enough mana to bring you to the next multiple of your minimum mana pool.

You should be roughly following the green line. The monster should lag behind along the inner black oval line.

Circle-strafing, or kiting, is an effective technique in many games, and can be used to overcome otherwise impossible challenges or to make things easier. However, it not just an unskilled tactic for newbs. It benefits from practice and knowledge. Monsters follow the player in a pure pursuit pattern; unlike aircraft, however, they do not lose energy by making tighter turns -- they can turn instantly and with no loss of velocity.

Despite this, monsters seem to only update their angle after a certain amount of time or a certain angle between the monster's facing and the player's position is reached. This means that the player can change the monster from its pure pursuit (in which it slowly gives up distance because players have a higher move speed) to a lag pursuit in which the monster is aimed at a position the player used to be in, thus increasing the distance between the two at an even faster rate.

Purple stars are Lightning Strike uses; puffs of red+orange are Fireball uses; black arrows indicate direction of player travel along the green line.

To force a monster into lag pursuit, the player must make ovals instead of circles. By turning on a smaller angle for as long as possible (so that the monster does not update its facing), the monster will spend more time in lag pursuit than in pure pursuit. The monster will not be in lag pursuit the entire time, but the goal is to make the lag uptime as long as possible. See the image of the ideal roller derby racing line (above) as an example of the path to take.

For example, as a mage, following that line might look something like this if you're using lightning strike+fireball in between auto attacks in order to put in more damage faster.